The camps where criminals (criminal and political) were kept existed in Soviet Russia since 1919, were subordinate to the Cheka, were located mainly in the Arkhangelsk region and since 1921 were called SLON, decoding means "Northern Special Purpose Camps". With the growth of the state's terror against its citizens, as well as the increase in the tasks of industrializing the country, which few people voluntarily agreed to solve, in 1930 the Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Camps was created. During the 26 years of its existence, a total of more than eight million Soviet citizens served in the Gulag camps, a huge number of whom were convicted on political charges without trial.

Gulag prisoners were directly involved in the construction of a huge number of industrial enterprises, roads, canals, mines, bridges, entire cities.
Some of them, the most famous

• White Sea-Baltic Canal
• Moscow Channel
• Volga-Don Canal
• Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Combine
• Nizhny Tagil Iron and Steel Works
• Railway tracks in the north of the USSR
• Tunnel to Sakhalin Island (not completed)
• Volzhskaya HPP (Hydroelectric power plant)
• Tsimlyanskaya HPP
• Zhigulevskaya HPP
• City of Komsomolsk-on-Amur
• City Sovetskaya Gavan
• City of Vorkuta
• City of Ukhta
• City of Nakhodka
• City of Dzhezkazgan

The largest associations of the Gulag

• ALZHIR (decoding: Akmola camp for the wives of traitors to the Motherland
• Bamlag
• Berlag
• Namelesslag
• Belbaltlag
• Vorkutlag (Vorkuta ITL)
• Vyatlag
• dallag
• Dzhezkazganlag
• Dzhugdzhurlag
• Dmitrovlag (Volgolag)
• Dubravlag
• Intalag
• Karaganda ITL (Karlag)
• Kizelag
• Kotlas ITL
• Kraslag
• Lokchimlag
• Norilsklag (Norilsk ITL)
• Ozerlag
• Perm camps (Usollag, Visheralag, Cherdynlag, Nyroblag, etc.), Pechorlag
• Pejheldorlag
• Provlag
• Svirlag
• SWITL
• Sevzheldorlag
• Siblag
• Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON)
• Taezhlag
• Ustvymlag
• Ukhtpechlag
• Ukhtizhemlag
• Khabarlag

According to Wikipedia, there were 429 camps, 425 colonies, 2000 special commandant's offices in the Gulag system. The most crowded was the Gulag in 1950. Its institutions contained 2 million 561 thousand 351 people, the most tragic year in the history of the Gulag was 1942, when 352,560 people died, almost a quarter of all prisoners. For the first time, the number of people contained in the Gulag exceeded one million in 1939.

The Gulag system included colonies for minors, where they were sent from the age of 12

In 1956, the Main Directorate of Camps and Places of Detention was renamed the Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Colonies, and in 1959, the Main Directorate of Places of Confinement.

"The Gulag Archipelago"

Research by A. Solzhenitsyn on the system of detention and punishment of prisoners in the USSR. Written secretly in 1958-1968. First published in France in 1973. The "Gulag Archipelago" was endlessly cited in the broadcasts to the Soviet Union of radio stations "Voice of America", "Freedom", "Free Europe", "Deutsche Welle", due to which the Soviet people were more or less aware of the Stalinist terror. In the USSR, the book was openly published in 1990.

"On forced labor camps", which marked the beginning of the creation of the Gulag - the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps. In the documents of 1919-1920, the main idea of ​​camp content was formulated - work "to isolate harmful, undesirable elements and familiarize them with conscious labor through coercion and re-education."

In 1934, the Gulag became part of the united NKVD, reporting directly to the head of this department.
As of March 1, 1940, the Gulag system included 53 labor camps (including camps engaged in railway construction), 425 corrective labor colonies (CITs), as well as prisons, 50 juvenile colonies, 90 "baby homes".

In 1943, hard labor departments were organized at the Vorkuta and North-Eastern camps with the establishment of the most stringent isolation regime: convicts worked long hours and were used in heavy underground work in coal mines, in the extraction of tin and gold.

The prisoners also worked on the construction of canals, roads, industrial and other facilities in the Far North, the Far East and other regions. Severe punishments were applied in the camps for the slightest violations of the regime.

Gulag prisoners, which included both criminals and persons convicted under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR "for counter-revolutionary crimes", as well as members of their families, were required to work without pay. The sick and prisoners who were recognized as unfit for work did not work. Adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 fell into juvenile colonies. The "baby houses" housed the children of imprisoned women.

The total number of guards in the camps and colonies of the Gulag in 1954 was over 148 thousand people.

Having emerged as a tool and place for isolating counter-revolutionary and criminal elements in the interests of protecting and strengthening the "dictatorship of the proletariat", the GULAG, thanks to the system of "correction by forced labor", quickly turned into a virtually independent branch of the national economy. Provided with cheap labor force, this "industry" effectively solved the problems of industrialization of the eastern and northern regions.

Between 1937 and 1950, about 8.8 million people visited the camps. Persons convicted "for counter-revolutionary activities" in 1953 accounted for 26.9% of the total number of prisoners. In total, for political reasons during the years of Stalinist repressions, 3.4-3.7 million people passed through camps, colonies and prisons.

By a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of March 25, 1953, the construction of a number of large facilities, carried out with the participation of prisoners, was stopped, as not caused by "urgent needs of the national economy." Among the liquidated construction projects were the Main Turkmen Canal, railways in the north of Western Siberia, on the Kola Peninsula, a tunnel under the Tatar Strait, artificial liquid fuel plants, etc. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 27, 1953, about 1 .2 million prisoners.

The Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR of October 25, 1956 recognized "the continued existence of forced labor camps of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs as inexpedient as they do not ensure the fulfillment of the most important state task - the re-education of prisoners in labor." The GULAG system lasted for several more years and was abolished by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on January 13, 1960.

After the publication of the book by Alexander Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago" (1973), where the writer showed a system of mass repression and arbitrariness, the term "Gulag" became synonymous with the camps and prisons of the NKVD and the totalitarian regime as a whole.
In 2001, the State was founded in Moscow on Petrovka Street.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources.

The history of the Gulag is closely intertwined with the entire Soviet era, but especially with its Stalin period. A network of camps stretched throughout the country. They were visited by a variety of groups of the population, accused under the famous 58th article. The Gulag was not only a system of punishment, but also a layer of the Soviet economy. Prisoners carried out the most ambitious projects

The birth of the Gulag

The future Gulag system began to take shape immediately after the Bolsheviks came to power. During the Civil War, she began to isolate her class and ideological enemies in special concentration camps. Then this term was not shunned, since it received a truly monstrous assessment during the atrocities of the Third Reich.

At first, the camps were run by Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin. The mass terror against the “counter-revolution” included total arrests of the wealthy bourgeoisie, manufacturers, landowners, merchants, church leaders, etc. Soon the camps were given over to the Cheka, whose chairman was Felix Dzerzhinsky. They organized forced labor. It was also necessary in order to raise the ruined economy.

If in 1919 there were only 21 camps on the territory of the RSFSR, then by the end of the Civil War there were already 122 of them. In Moscow alone there were seven such institutions, where prisoners from all over the country were brought. In 1919 there were more than three thousand of them in the capital. It was not yet the Gulag system, but only its prototype. Even then, a tradition developed, according to which, all activities in the OGPU were subject only to internal departmental acts, and not to general Soviet legislation.

The first in the Gulag system existed in emergency mode. The civil war led to lawlessness and violation of the rights of prisoners.

Solovki

In 1919, the Cheka set up several labor camps in the north of Russia, more precisely, in the Arkhangelsk province. Soon this network was called SLON. The abbreviation stood for "Northern Special Purpose Camps". The Gulag system in the USSR appeared even in the most remote regions of a large country.

In 1923, the Cheka was transformed into the GPU. The new department has distinguished itself by several initiatives. One of them was a proposal to establish a new forced camp on the Solovetsky archipelago, which was not far from those same Northern camps. Before that, there was an ancient Orthodox monastery on the islands in the White Sea. It was closed as part of the fight against the Church and the "priests".

This is how one of the key symbols of the Gulag appeared. It was the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp. His project was proposed by Joseph Unshlikht - one of the then leaders of the Cheka-GPU. His fate is significant. This man contributed to the development of a repressive system, of which he eventually became a victim. In 1938, he was shot at the famous Kommunarka training ground. This place was the dacha of Heinrich Yagoda, People's Commissar of the NKVD in the 30s. He, too, was shot.

Solovki became one of the main camps in the Gulag in the 1920s. According to the instructions of the OGPU, it was supposed to contain criminal and political prisoners. A few years after the emergence of Solovki, they grew, they had branches on the mainland, including in the Republic of Karelia. The Gulag system was constantly expanding with new prisoners.

In 1927, 12 thousand people were kept in the Solovetsky camp. The harsh climate and unbearable conditions led to regular deaths. During the entire existence of the camp, more than 7 thousand people were buried in it. At the same time, about half of them died in 1933, when famine raged throughout the country.

Solovki were known throughout the country. Information about problems inside the camp was tried not to be taken out. In 1929, Maxim Gorky, at that time the main Soviet writer, arrived in the archipelago. He wanted to check the conditions in the camp. The writer's reputation was impeccable: his books were printed in huge numbers, he was known as a revolutionary of the old school. Therefore, many prisoners pinned hope on him that he would make public everything that was happening within the walls of the former monastery.

Before Gorky ended up on the island, the camp went through a total cleaning and was put in a decent shape. The abuse of prisoners has ceased. At the same time, the prisoners were threatened that if they let Gorky know about their lives, they would be severely punished. The writer, having visited Solovki, was delighted with how prisoners are re-educated, taught to work and returned to society. However, at one of these meetings, in a children's colony, a boy approached Gorky. He told the famous guest about the abuses of the jailers: torture in the snow, overtime, standing in the cold, etc. Gorky left the barracks in tears. When he sailed to the mainland, the boy was shot. The Gulag system dealt harshly with any disgruntled prisoners.

Stalin's Gulag

In 1930, the Gulag system was finally formed under Stalin. She was subordinate to the NKVD and was one of the five main departments in this people's commissariat. Also in 1934, all correctional institutions, which had previously belonged to the People's Commissariat of Justice, moved to the Gulag. Labor in the camps was legally approved in the Correctional Labor Code of the RSFSR. Now numerous prisoners had to implement the most dangerous and grandiose economic and infrastructure projects: construction, digging canals, etc.

The authorities did everything to make the Gulag system in the USSR seem like a norm to free citizens. For this, regular ideological campaigns were launched. In 1931, the construction of the famous White Sea Canal began. It was one of the most significant projects of the first Stalinist five-year plan. The Gulag system is also one of the economic mechanisms of the Soviet state.

In order for the layman to learn in detail about the construction of the White Sea Canal in positive terms, the Communist Party instructed well-known writers to prepare a laudatory book. So the work "Stalin's Channel" appeared. A whole group of authors worked on it: Tolstoy, Gorky, Pogodin and Shklovsky. Of particular interest is the fact that the book spoke positively about bandits and thieves, whose labor was also used. The Gulag occupied an important place in the system of the Soviet economy. Cheap forced labor made it possible to implement the tasks of the five-year plans at an accelerated pace.

Political and criminals

The Gulag camp system was divided into two parts. It was a world of political and criminals. The last of them were recognized by the state as “socially close”. This term was popular in Soviet propaganda. Some criminals tried to cooperate with the camp administration in order to make their existence easier. At the same time, the authorities demanded loyalty and surveillance of the political from them.

Numerous "enemies of the people", as well as those convicted of imaginary espionage and anti-Soviet propaganda, had no opportunity to defend their rights. Most often they resorted to hunger strikes. With their help, political prisoners tried to draw the attention of the administration to the difficult living conditions, abuses and bullying of the jailers.

Solitary hunger strikes did not lead to anything. Sometimes the NKVD officers could only increase the suffering of the convict. To do this, plates with delicious food and scarce products were placed in front of the starving people.

Fight against protest

The camp administration could pay attention to the hunger strike only if it was massive. Any concerted action by the prisoners led to the fact that among them they were looking for instigators, who were then dealt with with particular cruelty.

For example, in Ukhtpechlage in 1937 a group of convicts for Trotskyism went on a hunger strike. Any organized protest was seen as counter-revolutionary activity and a threat to the state. This led to the fact that in the camps there was an atmosphere of denunciation and distrust of the prisoners to each other. However, in some cases, the organizers of hunger strikes, on the contrary, openly announced their initiative because of the simple desperation in which they found themselves. In Ukhtpechlag, the founders were arrested. They refused to testify. Then the NKVD troika sentenced the activists to death.

If the form of political protest in the Gulag was rare, then riots were commonplace. At the same time, their initiators were, as a rule, criminals. The convicts often became victims of criminals who carried out the orders of their superiors. Representatives of the underworld received exemption from work or occupied an inconspicuous position in the camp apparatus.

Skilled labor in the camp

This practice was also connected with the fact that the Gulag system suffered from shortcomings in professional personnel. Employees of the NKVD sometimes had no education at all. The camp authorities often had no choice but to put the convicts themselves in economic and administrative-technical positions.

At the same time, among the political prisoners there were a lot of people of various specialties. The "technical intelligentsia" was especially in demand - engineers, etc. In the early 1930s, these were people who had been educated in Tsarist Russia and remained specialists and professionals. In fortunate cases, such prisoners were even able to establish trusting relationships with the administration in the camp. Some of them remained in the system at the administrative level when they were released.

However, in the mid-1930s, the regime was tightened, which also affected highly qualified convicts. The position of specialists who were in the intra-camp world became completely different. The well-being of such people depended entirely on the nature and degree of depravity of a particular boss. The Soviet system created the Gulag system also in order to completely demoralize its opponents - true or imaginary. Therefore, there could be no liberalism towards prisoners.

Sharashki

More lucky were those specialists and scientists who fell into the so-called sharashki. These were scientific institutions of a closed type, where they worked on secret projects. Many famous scientists ended up in camps for their freethinking. For example, such was Sergei Korolev - a man who became a symbol of the Soviet conquest of space. Designers, engineers, people associated with the military industry got into sharashki.

Such institutions are reflected in the culture. The writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who had been in a sharashka, many years later wrote the novel “In the First Circle”, where he described in detail the life of such prisoners. This author is best known for his other book, The Gulag Archipelago.

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, colonies and camp complexes had become an important element in many industrial sectors. The Gulag system, in short, existed wherever the slave labor of prisoners could be used. It was especially in demand in the mining and metallurgical, fuel and timber industries. Capital construction was also an important direction. Almost all large buildings of the Stalin era were erected by convicts. They were mobile and cheap labor.

After the end of the war, the role of the camp economy became even more important. The scope of forced labor has expanded due to the implementation of the atomic project and many other military tasks. In 1949, about 10% of the production in the country was created in the camps.

Unprofitability of camps

Even before the war, in order not to undermine the economic efficiency of the camps, Stalin abolished parole in the camps. At one of the discussions about the fate of the peasants who ended up in the camps after dispossession, he stated that it was necessary to come up with a new system of rewards for productivity in work, etc. Often, parole was waiting for a person who either distinguished himself by exemplary behavior, or became another Stakhanovite.

After Stalin's remark, the system of offsetting working days was abolished. According to it, prisoners reduced their term by going to work. The NKVD did not want to do this, since the refusal to pass tests deprived the prisoners of motivation to work diligently. This, in turn, led to a drop in the profitability of any camp. And yet the credits were cancelled.

It was the unprofitability of enterprises within the Gulag (among other reasons) that forced the Soviet leadership to reorganize the entire system, which had previously existed outside the legal framework, being under the exclusive jurisdiction of the NKVD.

The low efficiency of the work of prisoners was also associated with the fact that many of them had health problems. This was facilitated by a poor diet, difficult living conditions, bullying by the administration and many other hardships. In 1934, 16% of the prisoners were unemployed and 10% sick.

Liquidation of the Gulag

The abandonment of the Gulag took place gradually. The impetus for starting this process was the death of Stalin in 1953. The liquidation of the Gulag system was started just a few months after that.

First of all, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree on a mass amnesty. Thus, more than half of the prisoners were released. As a rule, these were people whose term was less than five years.

At the same time, most political prisoners remained behind bars. The death of Stalin and the change of power instilled confidence in many prisoners that something would change soon. In addition, the prisoners began to openly resist the harassment and abuse of the camp authorities. So, there were several riots (in Vorkuta, Kengir and Norilsk).

Another important event for the Gulag was the XX Congress of the CPSU. It was attended by Nikita Khrushchev, who shortly before that had won the inner-apparatus struggle for power. From the tribune, he also condemned the numerous atrocities of his era.

At the same time, special commissions appeared in the camps, which began to review the cases of political prisoners. In 1956 their number was three times less. The liquidation of the Gulag system coincided with its transfer to a new department - the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1960, the last head of the GUITK (Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Camps), Mikhail Kholodkov, was fired into the reserve.

GULAG (1930-1960), created in the system of the OGPU - NKVD of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Camps, a symbol of lack of rights, slave labor and arbitrariness in the Soviet society of the Stalinist era.

The Soviet prison and camp system began to take shape during the years of the Civil War. From the first years of its existence, a feature of this system was the fact that for criminals there were only places of detention (subordinate to the Main Directorate of Forced Labor of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR and the Central Punitive Department of the People's Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR, ordinary prisons and labor camps), and for political opponents of the Bolshevik regime - other places of detention (the so-called "political isolators", as well as the Administration of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camps, created in the early 1920s, which were under the jurisdiction of the state security bodies of the Cheka - OGPU).

In the conditions of forced industrialization and collectivization of agriculture in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the scale of repression in the country increased dramatically. A need arose for a quantitative increase in the number of places where prisoners were kept, as well as for a wider involvement of prisoners in industrial construction and for the colonization of sparsely populated, economically undeveloped regions of the USSR. On July 11, 1929, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution "On the Use of the Labor of Criminal Prisoners", according to which the maintenance of all convicts for a term of 3 years or more was transferred to the OGPU, in the system of which the Main Directorate of Camps (GULAG) was formed in April of the following year. All large corrective labor camps (ITL), according to the decree, were to be transferred from the NKVD to the jurisdiction of the Gulag, new camps were ordered to be created only in remote sparsely populated areas. Such camps were entrusted with the task of complex "exploitation of natural resources through the use of labor deprived of freedom."

The network of Gulag camps soon covered all the northern, Siberian, Central Asian and Far Eastern regions of the country. As early as 1929, the Directorate of the Northern Camps for Special Purposes (USEVLON), which was engaged in the development of the Pechora coal basin, was formed with a deployment center in Kotlas; Far East ITL with the deployment of management in

Khabarovsk and the area of ​​operation, covering the entire south of the Far Eastern Territory; Siberian ITL with management in Novosibirsk. In 1930, the Kazakh ITL (Alma-Ata) and the Central Asian ITL (Tashkent) were added to them. At the end of 1931, the construction of the White Sea-Baltic waterway was transferred from the People's Commissariat of Railways to the OGPU and the White Sea-Baltic ITL was formed. In the spring of 1932, the North-Eastern ITL (Magadan) was created to settle in Dalstroy; in the fall, the construction of the Moscow-Volga canal and the Baikal-Amur railway line was entrusted to the OGPU, and, accordingly, the Dmitrovsky and Baikal-Amur labor camps near Moscow were organized.

The total number of prisoners in the Gulag camps grew rapidly. On July 1, 1929, there were about 23 thousand of them, a year later - 95 thousand, a year later - 155 thousand people. As of January 1, 1934, the number of prisoners was already 510 thousand people. excluding those on the way.

The liquidation of the OGPU and the formation of the NKVD of the USSR in 1934 led to the fact that all places of detention in the country were transferred to the GULAG of the NKVD of the USSR. In 1935, Sarov and Akhun ITL were added to the 13 camps accepted from the OGPU, and the total number of prisoners exceeded 725 thousand people.

Forest camps did not require large capital investments for their arrangement, survived all the reorganizations and continued to operate until the day the Gulag was liquidated.

Creation of the camp system

The camp system began to take shape during the Civil War.

The main principle of the prison-camp system was that criminals were kept in certain places of detention, which were subordinate to the Main Directorate of Forced Labor, and political criminals of the Bolshevik regime were kept in “political isolators”.

Everyone knows that the situation in the country in the late 1920s and early 1930s was extremely difficult. Thanks to the forced industrialization and collectivization of agriculture, the scale of repressions applied in the country has sharply increased. Naturally, there was an urgent need to increase the number of places where prisoners were kept.

On July 11, 1929, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution "On the use of the labor of criminal prisoners", according to which the maintenance of all those convicted for a period of 3 years or more was transferred to the OGPU. In April 1930, the Main Directorate of Camps (GULAG) appeared.

According to the decree, all forced labor camps were to be transferred from the NKVD to the jurisdiction of the Gulag. But still a small number of camps were to appear in remote sparsely populated areas. Lawlessness reigned in the camps, elementary human rights were not respected, severe punishments were applied for the slightest violations of the regime. The prisoners worked for free on the construction of canals, roads, industrial and other facilities of the country. The main goal of such camps is the development of natural resources, at the expense of the labor of people deprived of their liberty. According to the project, after serving the term of imprisonment, it was proposed to leave people in the territories adjacent to the camps. Prisoners who showed themselves well in work, or distinguished themselves by exemplary behavior, were asked to be transferred "to a free settlement." The GULAG camp system covered many regions of the country - northern, Siberian, Central Asian, Far Eastern.

The number of prisoners in the Gulag camps grew every year. The number of prisoners on July 1, 1929 was about 23 thousand people, in 1930 - 95 thousand, by 1931 - 155 thousand people, by January 1, 1934 - 510 thousand people. During the years of great terror, the number of Gulag prisoners grew rapidly, despite the fact that they were subjected to capital punishment - execution. Compare, for example: in July 1937 there were 788 thousand prisoners in the camps, in April 1938 the total number exceeded 2 million people. The number of prisoners kept growing and in the future it was decided to organize five new forced labor camps, and later thirteen more special logging camps. A sharp rise in the number of convicts and an increase in the number of camps led to the fact that the Gulag could not cope with its primary tasks. All the forced labor camps of the Gulag, which specialized in agriculture and fishing, were subordinate to the NKVD; as well as nine more special production departments and departments.

Consider the Gulag labor camp. As a rule, the abbreviation "GULAG" means the entire apparatus of repression, including prisons, as well as the system of ideological propaganda.

The following divisions of the Gulag existed in the USSR:

Akmola Camp for the Wives of Traitors to the Motherland (ALZHIR), Bezymyanlag, Belbaltlag, Vorkutlag (Vorkuta ITL), Dallag, Dzhezkazganlag, Dzhugdzhurlag, Dmitrovlag (Volgolag), Karaganda ITL (Karlag), Kotlas ITL, Lokchimlag, Norilsklag (Norilsk ITL), Ozerlag, Perm camps (Usollag, Cherdynlag, Nyroblag, etc.), Pechorlag, Pechheldorlag, Prorvlag, Svirlag, SVITL, Sevzheldorlag, Siblag, Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON), Taezhlag, Ukhtpechlag, Khabarla. Each of the listed camp administrations included a number of camp points and camps.

How did you get into the Gulag?

On the eve of the arrest

The arrest snatched a person out of his usual life unexpectedly, sometimes leaving his relatives with only a few little things, symbols of his former well-being: tableware, a wall rug, a matchbox, a hunting measure for gunpowder ... And a feeling of confusion, misunderstanding - for what?

Anything could be the reason for the arrest: non-proletarian origin, a handful of spikelets collected on a collective farm field, family or friendly relations with an already arrested person, "violation of the passport regime", even being late for work.

Any careless word spoken not only in front of strangers, but also in the circle of friends, could cost a life. The country was flooded with secret security officers - secret agents, who regularly supplied intelligence reports, which were also sufficient grounds for arrest. In the "freest country" in the world, informing was elevated to the rank of civic virtue.

"Arrests are classified according to various criteria: night and day; home, service, travel; primary and repeated; dismembered and group. Arrests differ in the degree of surprise required, in the degree of expected resistance (but in tens of millions of cases of resistance, no resistance was expected, as well as arrests differ according to the severity of the specified search; if it is necessary to make an inventory for confiscation, a typo of rooms or an apartment; if necessary, arrest the wife after the husband, and send the children to an orphanage, or the entire rest of the family into exile, or also old men to the camp. (A. I. Solzhenitsyn "Gulag Archipelago")

During the search, the operatives confiscated all documents: passport, identity cards, student cards, even travel documents. An inventory of confiscated items was made. Part of the confiscated goods could then be found in the homes of the OGPU-NKVD workers themselves or in "random things" shops. "Having no value" was destroyed, just as the manuscripts and notebooks of the outstanding biologist N. I. Vavilov were destroyed, despite the fact that the flintlock pistol and two rifle cartridges found during the search were handed over to the NKVD warehouse.

It is unlikely that the state security officers understood who Vavilov was and could determine the value of his scientific material. Most often, people who had an education in several grades of elementary school went to work in the bodies. For them, it was a real opportunity, without having a specialty, to climb the social ladder, provide for themselves financially, have something that was unattainable for ordinary Soviet citizens. Each employee of the punitive bodies had to sign an obligation to keep all information and data about their work in the strictest confidence.

Prison - investigation - sentence

Over time, the methods of conducting the investigation were developed to the smallest detail. The investigation became a conveyor belt, where threats, torture alternated with intimate conversations, imprisonment in a punishment cell - with proposals for cooperation.

"... One must think that there was no such list of tortures and humiliations that would be handed over to investigators in a printed form ... But it was simply said ... that all measures and means are good, since they are aimed at a lofty goal; that the prison doctor should interfere as little as possible in course of the investigation. They probably arranged a comradely exchange of experience, "learned from the advanced", well, and declared a "material interest" - increased pay for night hours, bonuses for the tight deadlines of the investigation ... ". (A. I. Solzhenitsyn "Gulag Archipelago")

At the end of the investigation, the arrested man was awaiting trial, at which he hoped to prove the absurdity of the charges against him. He had no idea that an indictment had already been sent to the "relevant authorities", and extrajudicial bodies - the Special Conference or the local "troika" - would pass the verdict in absentia on the basis of protocols, without trial, without questioning the accused. On the day, secretaries sometimes signed hundreds of ready-made forms of extracts from the minutes of meetings of extrajudicial bodies, on which was the word "shoot". The verdict was final. Those sentenced to "the highest measure of social protection" were first collected in one cell, then they were taken out of the death chamber at night to the basements or taken to special training grounds and shot there. In Moscow, mass burials of the executed were carried out at the NKVD training ground in Butovo, Kommunarka, at the Donskoy and Vagankovsky cemeteries, on the territory of the Yauza hospital. According to official sources, only in Moscow and the Moscow region in 1921 - 1953. about 35 thousand people were shot. One of the hundreds of thousands of victims of bloody arbitrariness was the Petrograd teacher E. P. Zarudnaya, the mother of six children. Her husband, an officer, emigrated from Russia immediately after the revolution. This gave rise to accuse her of having links with the White Guards during the Civil War. In 1921, in Omsk, she was arrested and shot the same year. The children were saved - with the help of the American consul, they were taken to Japan, and from there to America.

The economic role of the Gulag

A. I. Solzhenitsyn wrote in Chapter V: “The economic need manifested itself, as always, openly and greedily: the state, which decided to get stronger in a short time (here, three-quarters of the case in time, as in the Belomor!) and without consuming anything from outside, needs labor force was

a) extremely cheap, and better - free;

b) unpretentious, ready to move from place to place on any day, free from a family, requiring neither settled housing, nor schools, nor hospitals, and for a while - neither a kitchen nor a bath.

The only way to obtain such a labor force was by swallowing your sons."

By the early 1930s, prisoner labor was seen as an economic resource. The decision of the Council of People's Commissars in 1929 ordered the OGPU to organize new camps for keeping prisoners in remote areas of the country, for the colonization of these areas, as well as the development of the exploitation of their natural resources through the use of prisoner labor.

A clearer attitude of the authorities to those deprived of liberty, as an economic resource, was expressed by Joseph Stalin. In 1938, he spoke at a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and stated the following about the then-existing practice of early release of prisoners: “We are doing poorly, we are disrupting the work of the camps. poorly…"

The prisoners who were in the Gulag during the period from 1930 to the 1950s built large industrial and transport facilities, such as:

Channels: White Sea-Baltic Canal named after Stalin, Canal named after Moscow, Volga-Don Canal named after Lenin

HPPs: Volzhskaya, Zhigulevskaya, Uglichskaya, Rybinskaya, Kuibyshevskaya, Nizhnetulomskaya, Ust-Kamenogorskaya, Tsimlyanskaya, etc.

· Metallurgical enterprises: Norilsk and Nizhny Tagil Iron and Steel Works, etc.);

Objects of the Soviet nuclear program

Many Soviet cities were erected with the help of the labor of Gulag prisoners: Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Sovetskaya Gavan, Magadan, Dudinka, Vorkuta, Ukhta, Inta, Pechora, Molotovsk, Dubna, Nakhodka

Prisoners also worked in agricultural work, in the extractive industries and in logging. According to some reports, the GULAG accounted for an average of three percent of the gross national product.

The head of the GULAG, Nasedkin, wrote on May 13, 1941: "Comparison of the cost of agricultural products in the camps and state farms of the NKSH of the USSR showed that the cost of production in the camps significantly exceeds the state farm."

After the death of Stalin and the mass amnesty of 1953, the construction of many facilities was not completed. For several years after that, the Gulag system gradually went away and finally ceased to exist in 1960.

The formation of Gulag networks began in 1917. It is known that Stalin was a great admirer of this type of camps. The Gulag system was not just a zone where prisoners served their sentences, it was the main engine of the economy of that era. All the grandiose construction projects of the 1930s and 1940s were carried out by the hands of prisoners. During the existence of the Gulag, many categories of the population visited there: from murderers and bandits, to scientists and former members of the government, whom Stalin suspected of treason.

How did the Gulag appear?

Most of the information about the Gulag refers to the late twenties and early 30s of the twentieth century. In fact, this system began to emerge immediately after the Bolsheviks came to power. The Red Terror program provided for the isolation of objectionable classes of society in special camps. The first inhabitants of the camps were former landowners, manufacturers and representatives of the wealthy bourgeoisie. At first, the camps were not led by Stalin, as is commonly believed, but by Lenin and Trotsky.

When the camps filled with prisoners, they were handed over to the Cheka, under the leadership of Dzerzhinsky, who introduced the practice of using prisoner labor to restore the country's ruined economy. By the end of the revolution, through the efforts of the "iron" Felix, the number of camps increased from 21 to 122.

In 1919, a system was already in place that was destined to become the basis of the Gulag. The war years led to complete lawlessness, which was happening in the territories of the camps. In the same year, the Northern camps were created in the Arkhangelsk province.

Creation of the Solovetsky Gulag

In 1923, the famous "Solovki" were created. In order not to build barracks for prisoners, an ancient monastery was included in their territory. The famous Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp was the main symbol of the Gulag system in the 1920s. The project for this camp was proposed by Unshlikht (one of the leaders of the GPU), who was shot in 1938.

Soon the number of prisoners in Solovki expanded to 12,000 people. The conditions of detention were so harsh that during the entire existence of the camp, according to official statistics, more than 7,000 people died. During the famine of 1933, more than half of that number died.

Despite the reigning cruelty and mortality in the Solovetsky camps, they tried to hide information about this from the public. When the famous Soviet writer Gorky, who was considered an honest and ideological revolutionary, arrived in the archipelago in 1929, the camp management tried to hide all the unsightly aspects of the life of prisoners. The hopes of the inhabitants of the camp that the famous writer would tell the public about the inhuman conditions of their detention did not come true. The authorities threatened all those who let it out with severe punishment.

Gorky was amazed at how labor turns criminals into law-abiding citizens. Only in the children's colony did one boy tell the writer the whole truth about the regime of the camps. After the writer left, this boy was shot.

For what offense could they send to the Gulag

More and more workers were required for new global construction projects. The investigators were given the task to accuse as many innocent people as possible. Denunciations in this case were a panacea. Many uneducated proletarians seized the opportunity to get rid of objectionable neighbors. There were standard charges that could be applied to almost anyone:

• Stalin was an inviolable person, therefore, any words that discredited the leader were subject to severe punishment;
• Negative attitude towards collective farms;
• Negative attitude towards bank government securities (loans);
• Sympathy for counter-revolutionaries (especially Trotsky);
• Admiration for the West, especially the USA.

In addition, any use of Soviet newspapers, especially those with portraits of leaders, was punishable by a term of 10 years. It was enough to wrap breakfast in a newspaper with the image of the leader, and any vigilant work comrade could hand over the “enemy of the people”.

The development of camps in the 30s of the 20th century

The Gulag camp system reached its peak in the 1930s. Visiting the museum of the history of the Gulag, you can see what horrors happened in the camps during these years. In the corrective labor code of the RSFS, work in camps was legally approved. Stalin constantly forced to carry out powerful campaigns to convince the citizens of the USSR that only enemies of the people are kept in the camps, and the Gulag is the only humane way to rehabilitate them.

In 1931, the largest construction project of the times of the USSR began - the construction of the White Sea Canal. This construction was presented to the public as a great achievement of the Soviet people. An interesting fact is that the press spoke positively about the criminals involved in the construction of BAMA. At the same time, the merits of tens of thousands of political prisoners were hushed up.

Often the criminals cooperated with the administration of the camps, representing another lever for the demoralization of political prisoners. Laudatory odes to thieves and bandits who made "Stakhanovite" norms at the construction site were constantly heard in the Soviet press. In fact, the criminals forced ordinary political prisoners to work for themselves, cruelly and demonstratively cracking down on the recalcitrant. Attempts by former military personnel to restore order in the camp environment were suppressed by the camp administration. Appearing leaders were shot or set on them by seasoned criminals (a whole system of incentives was developed for them for reprisals against political ones).

Hunger strikes were the only available way for political prisoners to protest. If solitary acts did not lead to anything good, except for a new wave of bullying, then mass hunger strikes were considered counter-revolutionary activities. The instigators were quickly identified and shot.

Skilled labor in the camp

The main problem of the Gulags was the huge shortage of skilled workers and engineers. Complex construction tasks had to be solved by high-level specialists. In the 1930s, the entire technical stratum consisted of people who studied and worked while still under tsarist rule. Naturally, it was not difficult to accuse them of anti-Soviet activities. The administration of the camps sent lists to the investigators, which specialists were required for large-scale construction projects.

The position of the technical intelligentsia in the camps was practically no different from the position of other prisoners. For honest and hard work, they could only hope that they would not be subjected to bullying.

The most fortunate were the specialists who worked in closed secret laboratories on the territory of the camps. There were no criminals there, and the conditions of detention of such prisoners were very different from the generally accepted ones. The most famous scientist who went through the Gulag is Sergei Korolev, who became the originator of the Soviet era of space exploration. For his merits, he was rehabilitated and released along with his team of scientists.

All large-scale pre-war construction projects were completed with the help of the slave labor of convicts. After the war, the need for this labor force only increased, as many workers were required to restore the industry.

Even before the war, Stalin abolished the parole system for shock work, which led to demotivation of prisoners. Previously, for hard work and exemplary behavior, they could hope for a reduction in the term of imprisonment. After the abolition of the system, the profitability of the camps fell sharply. Despite all the atrocities The administration could not force people to do quality work, especially since poor rations and unsanitary conditions in the camps undermined people's health.

Women in the Gulag

The wives of traitors to the motherland were kept in "ALZHIR" - the Akmola camp of the Gulag. For refusing “friendship” with representatives of the administration, one could easily get an “increase” in time or, even worse, a “ticket” to a male colony, from where they rarely returned.

ALZHIR was founded in 1938. The first women who got there were the wives of Trotskyists. Often, along with their wives, other members of the family of prisoners, their sisters, children and other relatives also ended up in the camps.

The only method of women's protest was the constant petitions and complaints that they wrote to various authorities. Most of the complaints did not reach the addressee, but the authorities mercilessly cracked down on the complainants.

Children in Stalin's camps

In the 1930s, all homeless children were placed in Gulag camps. Although the first children's labor camps appeared as early as 1918, after April 7, 1935, when a decree was signed on measures to combat juvenile delinquency, this became widespread. Usually children had to be kept separately, often they were together with adult criminals.

All punishments were applied to teenagers, including execution. Often, 14-16-year-old teenagers were shot only because they were the children of the repressed and "imbued with counter-revolutionary ideas."

Museum of Gulag History

The Gulag History Museum is a unique complex that has no analogues in the world. It presents reconstructions of individual fragments of the camp, as well as a huge collection of artistic and literary works created by former prisoners of the camps.

A huge archive of photographs, documents and belongings of the inhabitants of the camp allows visitors to appreciate all the horrors that happened on the territory of the camps.

Liquidation of the Gulag

After Stalin's death in 1953, the gradual liquidation of the Gulag system began. A few months later, an amnesty was announced, after which the population of the camps was halved. Sensing the relaxation of the system, the prisoners began mass riots, seeking further amnesties. A huge role in the elimination of the system was played by Khrushchev, who sharply condemned Stalin's personality cult.

The last head of the main department of labor camps, Kholodov, was transferred to the reserve in 1960. His departure marked the end of the Gulag era.

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